Producers and Songwriters, before selling the rights to your beats or songs, you should consider whether selling them exclusively or non-exclusively is better for your situation. Both options have benefits and downsides. So how do you decide which is better for you?
A good way to determine if you should give away your product exclusively or non-exclusively may be based on the following questions:
a) How likely am I to use the piece again?
b) How long it takes me to write the song or make the beat?
c) What is the shelf life of my song or beat?
d) How much money do I want to make and how fast?
Exclusive rights grant the customer the right to use the beat or song for all commercial recording purposes. A contract is typically received by the client disclosing their rights to the piece. It is important to note that granting a client exclusive rights to a beat or song does not entitle them to any portion of your publishing rights. However, exclusive rights are sold only to one party and may not be resold to anyone else. Once full rights for a beat are purchased, the beat will be taken off the market.
- The Benefits: You will be able to sell your beat or song for a higher profit than if it were non-exclusive.
- The Downsides: You will not be able to use this beat or song ever again. Also, selling the beat or song exclusively gives the customer full creative control allowing them to go against your original vision for the piece. This is important to consider as producers and songwriters usually have strong ideas about where they want the music to go creatively.
Non-exclusive rights grant the client the rights to use a beat or song for all commercial recording purposes, however these rights can be extended to more than one person at a time. The beat or song will still be available for purchase and the same rights may be given to anyone else who purchases it non-exclusively. It is important to note that once a beat or song is sold non-exclusively it cannot be sold exclusively. Doing this will cause a breach, on the sellers part, in both contracted agreements.
- The Benefits: Non-exclusive contracts are better for one-time demos and low budget albums because they serve the primary purpose of the project without breaking the bank. Financially speaking, as a producer or songwriter, you can resell your non-exclusive piece over and over again creating repeat profit. In the long run this strategy has the potential to generate a large income.
- The Downsides: You will usually sell non-exclusive pieces for less than you would an exclusive one, generating less upfront profit. Also some people may not want to buy your non-exclusive beat or song once they have found out that a number of other people have already used it.
There are other ways you can structure your selling agreement to be more flexible but these options are beyond the scope of this article. For more info on Leasing exclusive versus non-exclusive rights check out the following links:
http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/195142/exclusive_vs_nonexclusive_content_which.html
http://www.writing-world.com/rights/rights.shtml
Thanks for posting this info. I'm a Graphic Designer and it even helped me. ;)
ReplyDeleteJaimie